Description

Blogs are reshaping our political, social, and cultural environment. Education is affected by blogs because of their potential for learning and teaching, and also their risks. This article elaborates on a set of rules for evaluating and implementing blogs in teaching college science.

Technology is essential to science, because it provides instruments and techniques that enable observations of objects and phenomena that are otherwise unobservable due to factors such as quantity, distance, location, size, and speed. (5-8)

Technology provides tools for investigations, inquiry, and analysis.

Process Standards for Professional Development

Design

Introduce teachers to scientific literature, media, and technological resources that expand their science knowledge and their ability to access further knowledge. (NSES)

Teaching Standards

Teachers of science engage in ongoing assessment of their teaching and of student learning.

Use student data, observations of teaching, and interactions with colleagues to reflect on and improve teaching practice.

Use multiple methods and systematically gather data about student understanding and ability.

For anyone considering to implement blogging into their instruction or would like to improve the discourse generated in their classroom blog's would benefit from reading this article. This article presents the 9 rules of effective classroom blogging such as providing structure. The author also provides examples of blogs and comments that truly evoke the idea of critical debate in science.